MacMullan on Replay

I finally got around to watching yesterdays ATH this afternoon and I was amazed at the thoughts of Jackie MacMullan:

"Listen, I'm all for replay, I think we've made that clear all along here. But, I'm not sure, Tony, that I go along with the idea of doing it in the middle of the season. What about all those teams that already were penalized because the umpires got the score wrong like in the Mets-Yankees game earlier this year? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you're gonna do it, you should do it across the board on an even playing field. If you institute it now, that's not the case. I don't go for this."

Kevin Blackistone thinks it's a good idea, while Tim Cowlishaw agrees with Jackie Mac.

Honestly, Cowlishaw and MacMullen couldn't be more wrong on this one. There is nothing wrong with bringing in replay on August 1st. MLB isn't changing any rules. Using replay merely helps eliminate human error on specific calls.

MacMullen implies that using replay ruins the fairness of human error. I don't think human error works that way in this case. Granted, if there are enough close HR calls, the umps should get approximately the same percentage right and wrong. The human error will probably even out. However, how long do we have to wait? Are there enough of these plays during a year that holding off on replay is going to help even things out? I really doubt it, which is why I think it's asinine to make the argument that instituting replay punishes teams like the Mets who were wronged by bad calls earlier in the season.

Some rules shouldn't be changed during the season. If MLB wanted to change the rule governing SB's to say runners can't leave the base until the ball leaves the pitcher's hand (I think that's the softball rule), it would adversely affect certain teams that have been built on speed. Guys like Juan Pierre, Ichiro, Jose Reyes and Jacoby Ellsbury wouldn't be as valuable. Or, making changes to the strike zone to widen the zone 5 inches on either side of the plate wouldn't be a good change. It would unfairly help teams with good control pitchers (remember the Atlanta Braves ten years ago?) who can consistently work in areas where batters can't hurt them. Greg Maddux is a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame, but he's always been a lot easier to hit if he has to throw balls in the zone.

I'm not sure how many calls replay will affect. But, as we go down the home stretch of the baseball season, each and every game takes on added importance (because there is less time to recover from a game lost because of a crappy call). Thus, I'm all for any changes MLB wants to implement (within reason, obviously) to help umps get the calls right.